Jacana

Jacana Camp is a true Okavango Delta water camp, located on an island wonderland in a region with amazing wildlife and teeming with birds. Explorations by mokoro provide an idyllic connection to a bygone era through a tranquil passage along papyrus-fringed channels.

Situated on a small island in the beautiful Jao Flats area of the concession, Jacana offers remote seclusion. Accommodation is in five Meru-style tents, each raised on a wooden deck with a view. The en-suite bathroom is enclosed but roofless allowing views of the African skies.

The camp sits neatly in the middle of a waterlocked palm-fringed island that is also lush and thick with vegetation and large trees. This really is a small island that, when the delta waters are full, sometimes feel as though the camp could hardly fit. Sitting in the Jao concession, this region offers truly spectacular landscape that is the picture postcard version of the Okavango Delta.
Close to the Panhandle in the Delta’s north-west, the 60 000-hectare Jao Concession’s vegetation varies from east to west: from the magical Jao Flats – picturesque floodplains with lush palm islands and riparian forest – to the dryer Hunda Island, covered in acacia and mopane woodland and the largest area of dry land locally during the annual floods.

Around the Jao Flats the primary predators – lion and leopard, follow spectacular herds of red lechwe. Other game includes wildebeest, tsessebe, giraffe, elephant, hippo and crocodile. Sitatunga are seen occasionally, and sightings of spotted-necked otter are regular.

The drier habitats in the west harbour similar species with greater concentrations of zebra and wildebeest. Birding is exceptional with large concentrations of endangered Wattled Crane, Slaty Egret, Rosy-throated Longclaw, Pel’s Fishing-Owl, and Lesser Jacana on the eastern side; the western drier areas are ideal for Crimson-breasted Shrike, Dickinson’s Kestrel and Meyer’s Parrot.